Starting December 1, Coinbase will discontinue its USDC rewards program for users in the European Economic Area (EEA) in order to comply with the forthcoming Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation.
EEA-based users are required to achieve their final rewards by November 30, and they will be distributed within the first ten business days of December as a result of this decision.
The Coinbase Earn program has been providing users worldwide with yields on USDC holdings, with rates that vary by location. In response to MiCA’s classification of stablecoins as E-money tokens, Coinbase has discontinued the rewards for EEA consumers in order to comply with the regulation’s more stringent requirements.
MiCA’s objective is to establish a unified regulatory framework for digital assets throughout the European Union, thereby forcing exchanges to modify their offerings or risk delisting non-compliant assets.
MiCA’s changing landscape is also influencing other crypto actors. Tether has prioritized the development of compliant tokens such as EURQ and USDQ while concurrently decreasing its other initiatives. Bitstamp has already restricted access to non-compliant tokens for European consumers and delisted certain stablecoins, including Tether’s Euro-pegged EURt.
In response, Binance has implemented progressive restrictions to ensure that its stablecoin offerings meet MiCA’s requirements, adopting a phased approach to minimize market disruption.
The regulatory overhaul represents a substantial transformation in the management and trading of stablecoin assets in the European region, substantially altering the operations of stablecoin issuers and exchanges.
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